Chapter 6*

She looked quaint in all her glory,

Modest, absolute yet peppy.

Twice in sight and all I'm gone,

Will I ever see her again when all this is done?

An instant I wish,

To see thy imperfections nearest,

An instant I wish,

I could heed thy voice, dearest.

Confess my name once and down the hill I shall tumble.

Confess my name once and down my heart shall stumble.

"Hmm. Still fantasizing, eh?" The voice startled the young boy inducing him to shut his biro in his journal to offer his entire attention to his friend.

"She's not your league, Greene, even in the dream world," The chunky man consoled in his usual way with a light tap on the blonde-haired boy's shoulders. "Here, I got something to eat." He dropped an opaque plastic bag of laminated loaf on the tattered three-legged mite-eaten study table.

The young boy stared at the loaf as if it had offended him in his previous life.

"Don't stare at it that way," he plopped on a mouse deformed sofa with a heavy huff. "If anything, give it thanks: it's been the reason for my survival and now yours." He said as he discarded his once thick now thin heeled trainers with the tip of his toes.

Bread and water.

The orphanage was way adequate. At least, despite the bullying from other kids who hadn't been favored by adoption behind closed doors, he ate decent food, wore presentable clothes, and slept on warm, comfortable beds. He missed that even though he had no allies or acquaintances.

The young boy vacated the only furniture in proper shape that the small underground burrow, he now called home, owned with his journal in hand.

"Joseph was a dreamer," he said as he strolled across the three-step space to the floor-level stuck out spring mattress, tucked his journal beneath the pillow on his side of the ruffled bed before continuing, "he was rebuked by his father and brothers because of those dreams."

He now leaned on the ever humid wall which contributed to the stale air of the windowless underground basement, pocketed his hands in his grey striving-clean Burberry imprinted hoodie, and lifted his azure orbs to the flickering 7 Watt LED bulb above their heads. The poor thing tried its best to illuminate the tiny dim room for as long as he could remember and reckoned it was time to retire.

The chunky fellow, now opposite him, ingested his last bite on one go, which on decent occasion will be three bites worth. "I am no believer, kid, therefore, I don't give a damn about whatever mumbo-jumbo is scripted in that waste of paper sheets and ink." He leaned his head against the wall.

In the silence of the dull morning, Greene could hear the faint roaring of an engine to live then crunches of the two minutes walk neighbor's truck wheels against the gravel pull out of the driveway. The faint barking of his Spaniel resonated seconds later and then silence. Dead silence.

Then came Mama T's cane thumping on the wooden floors.

"I don't know why but I believe that we'll cross paths again someday," he sounded distant yet confident at the shyly bubbling merriment of not only talking and being close to her but also of scenting the fragrance she wore.

His friend laughed so hard, loud. Loud enough to have Mama T double tap on the basement ceiling for disturbing the peace of the serene atmosphere.

"That Catholic orphanage did you no good as a man. You aim beyond the imaginable."

An image shaped in his mind. It was of a pretty slender young girl. Her milkish brown face was as he remembered however, her hair fluctuated between the braids he'd first seen her in during an interview with her mother on a roadside TV store and the voluminous curls she'd been with back in the mall a week ago.

She looked more beautiful ten feet away, that which only made him wonder how she'll look up close.

"Tell me, what other thing are you good at besides stealing," the chunky man scrolled his physique, "looking good and preaching the impossible?"

Fadeel was a recent acquaintance he'd made since his robbery incident at the antique shop opposite the mall. Fear of being hounded by the police if he dawdled a little more, he thoughtlessly bent into an ally where he hid for sometimes behind a dumpster with a rare antiquated elephant's tusk in his hand like a rare piece of Mexican gold during which he wondered why the police hadn't trailed towards the direction he took a good two minutes later.

He said nothing.

"You're well aware that neither what we do will take us out of this shit we're in, right?" Fadeel pulled out a cigarette from his breast pocket, lit it, and stuffed the pungent air more than it already was. "You can't keep looting this way forever. You'll get caught sooner than you can snap a finger."

Now, Fadeel was as well hidden, not behind the dumpster though. He crouched at a shaded corner of the ally dressed in rags, a huge old straw hat shaded half his face leaving nothing to the curious eyes but his short stubbled chin and thin lips. Beside him was an empty chipped bowl. Back then, Greene was terrified about him more than he was about the chasing police.

"You did well, kid," he had said, not twitching a muscle further. "This is one of the idle alleys of this town. Funny, right?" His lips thinned like that of a slithering snake. "In the big and boisterous city of New York not only can we find a serene corner," he lifted his hat to an eerie dirty chubby face, "we can also find a burglar in broad daylight."

"Who are you?"

The man stayed silent for a while. "Fadeel. Fadeel the mendicant."

Greene's eyes lowered, slowly relaxing on the paved path. "That's some huge stuff to carry around at this time of the day. Why that?"

The young blond remained lip-stitched. Then Fadeel huffed. "You might wanna stay here a while, take a rest with me, at least until we're out of prying eyes. Ah, how I hate summer sometimes. The damn sun is a great hinder to my income."

Their conversation became flexible with time yet Greene withheld. As a trust issue invalid who never laid a dime of it to a soul in the place he spent half his life knew better than trust a three hours acquaintance.

"It's about time we leave," Fadeel estimated finally bulging to a five feet ten ample height. "Gotta truck two blocks from here. Just like me, it stands out," he adjusted his straw hat further down his face and began walking away, "don't take too long."

When he told Fadeel, once he made it to a scrap of a truck at a deserted end, that he had no home, the man laughed. "Well, kid," he started the engine, "ya lucky I gotta place for an extra body."

"I got a bargain," Fadeel puffed out a grey cloud. "Are you good at technology? You look quite smart."

Fortunately, he was. Since he hit eight, he had always been fascinated by gadgets of all kinds most especially with computer systems. Sometimes he was summoned whenever those in the orphanage malfunctioned, usually minor issues. All thanks to his first adoptive parents.

"Yes."

Fadeel groaned as he tilted to the side to pull out a poorly folded piece of paper, stretched it to his comrade, and said, "Read that."

It was a carefully ripped out piece of information from a newspaper that alleged the surge of cyberpunks modifying their attack strategy to reap undeserved money from others' blood, sweat, and tears. The information further emphasized a perpetual discipline to the unfortunate.

Greene questioningly stared at Fadeel still not understanding why he gave him that and how it was related to the deal.

Fadeel took one last drag, tossed the cigarette stub on the dusty concrete floor where he extinguished it with a harsh smash. "That's something promising. You good with tech and I'm good with guidance. We succeed, Fifty-fifty, Good?"

Greene looked at the piece of paper in his hold as if it spoke to him words that he still could not decipher.

"I'm not doing this," He simply stated.

"Why not?" Fadeel grimly inquired.

"It's wrong and we could get caught," he reread the line which mentioned perpetual discipline, his body crawled.

Fadeel again burst into a hysterical peal of laughter causing Mama T's cane to come into action again. "Wrong you say? Isn't taking what's not yours naturally wrong?" He turned his head to the tusk which leaned on the wall, "The only wrong thing here is the greedy rich who still don't get enough of making more money."

"We won't be doing no wrong as long as we have a target." He looked into nothing, eyes cold from years of tough sceneries. "Look here, kid, but first, look at you, look around you, behind you, and ahead of you; looking at you, you're an unfortunate wiseass with a rough past, a rough present but a questioning future. You can make it bright, live big, eat good food, wear clean clothes, live in luxurious homes, and have all that you want if you act and think out of the rules of the world."

"Looking around you; there's misery upon the grassroots because of a selfish regime. The rich get richer meanwhile the poor get poorer. Still, that's if you succumb to the rules of the world. A little insubordination is fine sometimes."

"We all have different reasons why we fight for survival; to fulfill more, to see what our kids will become of this life, to prove someone wrong or right, to want to see and hold someone, just to name a few. So kid, if what you fear is the outcome of wanting to live to expectation then you shouldn't live at all because down here sucks as hell." He paused for a while, stood up, and walked to his comrade.

"Is there any hell worst than where you are?" He glimpsed the surroundings and tapped the young boy's shoulder, "Think about it." And sped up the creaky stairs leading out of the basement.